Consumption diary: January + February

MUSIC: JAN

BOOKS
(in the order I read them)

How to Change Your Mind: the New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollen (non-Fiction, audiobook, US)

This book convinced me I wanted to try psychedelics after the first dozen pages, and then dragged on so long I kind of can't be bothered anymore. Unlike previous books by Pollen that I've read, where he was able to start and stop multiple times due to structure (The Botany of Desire) or wasn't wading against five decades of social bias (A Place of My Own).

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli (non-fiction, audiobook, Italy, translated)

In retrospect, maybe it's a good thing I felt this short explainer of a book told me nothing new.

Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith (non-fiction, audiobook, UK)

High quality thought and writing, though suffers the inevitable lumpiness and repetition when a writer (particularly a writer who views non-fiction as a sideline) rounds up their published work to bind between two covers. But taken en masse, Feel Free convinced me Smith is not just one of the pre-eminent writers of her generation, but one of its clearest thinkers.

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker (non-fiction, audiobook, US)

There were large swathes of this book I sped through as it was telling me things I already knew. But towards the end it introduced me to some concepts (or perhaps it was more a framework for thinking, and it relied on everything that went before... that's probably what Pinker was going for), and I've been able to Think Like Pink(er) [TM pending] a number of times, especially when it comes to understanding why certain decisions get made at work.

Back with the Human Condition by Nick Ascroft (poetry, NZ)

Heady word salad.

(I'm trying to read at least one poetry book a month, and am already one behind; my reviews have a three word limit).

The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (non-fiction, audiobook, US)

I want to read Haidt and Lukianoff's The Coddling of the American Mind, which came out recently, but reserved Haidt's earlier book from my library's audiobook service and it became available first. I almost didn't listen to it, coming on the heels of Pinkers too-long but somewhat convincing treatise about the persistence of enlightenment ideals.

But I did persist and it actually wasn't a drag. It avoided being self-helpy, or Sam Harris-style syncretism, was eminently sensible when it comes to drugs like Prozac, and his motif of the elephant and rider is something I now use when thinking about my own behaviour on a daily basis.

Normal People by Sally Rooney (novel, audiobook, Ireland)

Yeah, so, this deserves the hype. And the fact Will Self can't see it? Even better.

I listened to the first two-thirds of this audiobook over the car stereo with my wife after dropping my kids off at my mum's house and on the return journey; we then finished it lying in bed next to each other over a couple of evenings.

So it's hard to separate out the impact of the book from the means of its consumption (the importance of "set and setting" as the psychedelic pioneers referred to it, HT Pollen). That shared experience, and the fact my wife and I met when we were 18 (the novel starts in the last year of high school) and had all the stutters and missteps you'd expect, and the dude in the relationship starts on the path to becoming a writer and SPOILER ALERT applies to an MFA/MA in another country without telling her and then gets accepted.

So yeah, despite the fact Rooney's characters are a decade younger, there was a lot that cut close to the bone.

Will Self might dismiss Rooney's simple prose, but it's better than verging on unreadable, and to write so cleanly is harder than trying to sound smart. It's not perfect, by any means. This review in The Guardian does a good job of pointing out it's short-comings (while still hailing it as "a future classic"). The biggest crime might've been those moments when, in conversation, I could feel the author bursting forth, eager to say something (particularly in the latter stages when Connell gets into literary circles), but it's hard not to see this book becoming one of those generation-defining books, like Generation-X or The Secret History, that are also universally relatable.

Call Me Evie by JP Pomare (novel, audiobook, NZ)

Pomare's debut succeeds on multiple levels. It's well written, timely and absolutely hits its marks as a 21st century psychological thriller.

Unfortunately, this genre (think: Gone Girl, Girl on the Train) just doesn't do it for me. It uses the unreliable narrator (often impaired in some way) as an excuse to withhold basic information that facilitates mystery, suspense and a twist. But the secrets are never that good and when compared to straight-up crime fiction, there's a vacuum where a hero (or anti-hero) might otherwise be.

A Death in the Family (My Struggle Book 1) by Karl Ove Knausgaard (novel, audiobook, translated, Norway)

So I've finally got around to reading Knausgaard. I resisted because did I really need to read the inner workings of another white male writer? But golly, is it good. It had me thinking about life (and Life) and writing almost constantly.

Dammit.

MUSIC: FEB

MOVIES & TV

Phantom Thread
Birdbox
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Killing Eve -Season 1
Fyre (Netflix documentary)
The Breaker-Upperers
High Flying Bird
Ready Player One
And... in December I cracked and bought an NBA League Pass subscription, and have been watching every Sacramento Kings game (once I get home and the kids are in bed). Their season has exceeded initial expectations to such a ridiculous degree that getting 44 wins and missing the playoffs would be a bitter disappointment. It's so odd to be in February and be watching the results of the teams jostling for the last two playoff births in the West ("f**k the Lakers") rather than the tanking teams racing to the bottom of the standings in the hope of securing a franchise-saving player in the draft (though I'm still interested to see where Zion lands... worst case scenario, the Mavs defy the odds in the lottery and vault to the top of the draft and their unholy trinity dominate for a decade).

Fortnight 19 of the Burns

Fortnight 19 summary

Total wordcount: 14,660 (65% on the novel, 29% essays, 3% on the blog and 3% on poetry)
1st week: 9,251
2nd week: 5,409

That Thursday (19 October)

1)

I woke to news that Gord Downie had passed away.

I wrote about Gord's brain cancer and The Hip most recently in my April Consumption Diary. It's the tip of the iceberg, really. The Tragically Hip have been an obsession of mine for the last 15 years; their music has underwritten so much of my creativity over that time.

One nice thing: Gord managed one last album (a double LP called Introduce Yerself) which comes out on the 27th of October. I'm working on something to accompany the album dropping, and hopefully it'll find a home somewhere online...

2)

The fates (or the editors of the Otago Daily Times) chose that same day for the publication of my profile in the local paper, a full two months after the interview and (very brief) photo shoot.

(I'm so over thinking about my writing (and being written about) in terms of juggling paid employment, family and writing. One of the great things about this year is writing and money have been pretty well merged. But IT IS temporary. So I guess I'll just have to run the risk of looking like a part-timer until I have another book to speak on my behalf.)

3)

In the afternoon, the Sacramento Kings played their first game of the new NBA season. There are zero expectations in terms of winning or the playoffs for the squad this year, but half the roster have one or fewer years experience in the NBA, and it's going to be fascinating how the young guys develop.

Against Houston, they delivered the expected 'L', but the game was great to watch and the young guys who made it onto the court played well. I noted in Fortnight 11 that I was sceptical about D'Aaron Fox, but so far he's proving me wrong.

4)

I went to a talk at 5:15pm on 'Fake Religions, Fake News and the Allure of Fiction', by Carole M Cusack from the Universtiy of Sydney. As I'm writing a book that features a fictional cult (which touches on but is not the sole representation of a kind of alternative spirituality), this was very timely.

After a bit of academic calisthenics, Cusack provided an interesting survey of new religions that have appeared since the 1960s, predominantly those inspired by works of fiction (the Church of All Worlds, Jediism, Matrixism, Dudeism, Bronies, etc).

It was fascinating, if a little superficial (such is the nature of surveying such a proliferation of movements in an hour).

During the Q&A, Cusack mentioned the 4 million Americans who claim to have been abducted by aliens, and how she was looking into ufology: was there something in it, or was it a case of cascading mindsets?

I probably asked questions in about 2% of Q&As I attend - I just don't think of questions, and if I do, they're so niche I feel no one else would benefit from hearing the answer. But in this case, surrounded by a lot of Religious Studies academics and students, the whole talk was probably too niche, so I thought what the hey.

I asked what is it about new age, syncretic religions, like Damanhur in Turin (and now elsewhere), that do a really good job of selecting good aspects from the religious pick'n'mix that's available to them, but then they go and overreach by believing in something like UFOs or, in the case of Damanhur, time travel? Is it that they feel that to be a religion they need something beyond human comprehension? Or is it, more cynically, a marketing thing: to cut through the noise of the other movements, they need something to hang their hat on?

Both were likely, according to Cusack, who also noted that in many countries, in order to be acknowledged as a religion (and thus receive favourable treatment in terms of tax etc) the legal process definitely privileges those with out-there beliefs.

5)

When I got home and switched on the news, Winston had finally made up his mind and went with Labour (and, implicitly, The Greens).

My Twitter bubble was going bananas.

It'll certainly be what 19 October 2017 will be most remembered for around these parts... But my wife told me Downie's passing was on the list of most read articles on Stuff.co.nz earlier in the day, and I'll cling to that.


Tales of Chip Pnini

The week previous, The Spinoff published my piece called: 'Everything wrong with NBA 2K18’s MyCareer mode and one possible solution'. It doesn't cover everything, but it gives you a good idea of my take.

And reader, I'm still playing.

Taieri Gorge Railway

On Saturday, we (wife, two kids and in-laws) went on the Taieri Gorge Railway to Pukerangi, then got a shuttle to Middlemarch, biked the first 5kms of the Central Otago Rail Trail (enough to know it was not enough; but more than enough for the two pre-schoolers).

On Sunday the train ran from Middlemarch, so we caught it back to Dunedin. Another great wee trip. Bless you Otago.

Debris from the flood a couple months back

Last for a reason

How's the novel going? Let's just say I read a takedown of Dan Brown's latest book this morning (as if he hadn't been taken down in all the ways you might approach literature a hundred times over; like, the only reason I read it was to see why anyone would go through that effort in 2017, but I'm still none the wiser) and found myself thinking: shit, a reviewer could say these things about MY NOVEL!! 

I tell myself that, even if that was true about what on the page (or some of the pages) at the moment, the manuscript exists as an incomplete first draft. I can get rid of the Brownisms and make scenes that aren't working work with a bit of elbow grease on the next go round.

But far out. Can I get to the end of this thing already so I can spend my days making it better rather than making it feel worse?!?!?

Light the fuse: Fortnight 11 of the Burns

Moeraki Boulders

A week late again, so this refers to the fortnight 19 June-2 July.

Total words: 7,875

Breakdown:

• Novel 5,416, Blog 2232, Other 227
• 1st week 4595 (including a Saturday(!) and several 5am starts)
• 2nd week 3280 (lower as I spent Thurs and Fri that week on structure/re-story boarding scene in the novel and writing NOTHING)

The main distraction in fortnight 11 was the NBA Draft. My interest in the NBA was at a low ebb during the season, thanks to the Sacramento Kings still sucking (it's 15 years since their glory days!!) and then trading their best (but admittedly problematic) player for what looked like peanuts. But one of those peanuts was a 1st round draft pick, and some luck in the lottery meant they had the 5th and 10th picks in a pretty good draft class. So I got sucked back in, big time.

Draft day, 23 June
(I actually wrote 1,010 words in the morning)

(I didn't like any of their picks on draft day

• Fox was the consensus #5 pick but I think his iffy jumper and slight frame will mean he never reaches stardom and Dennis Smith Jr and Jonathan Isaac would have been better picks long term.
• Trading #10 for #15 and #20 was fine in principle. I mean, Zach Collins is overrated, and I'd have been angry if they took him had they kept the pick, but Malik Monk or Donavon Mitchell will both be productive players. But, leading up to the 15th pick, I though maybe it'd work out well.
• But Justin Jackson at #15? I just don't see him being a starter, ever. You can only draft the people that fall to you (so no Monk or Mitchell or DSJ), but I'd have taken a flier on OG Anunboy, or gone big with John Collins and picked up a wing with #20 (Ferguson, Ojeleye)
• Then they took Harry Giles at #20, which is fine in the context of how many okay but not great bigs they have, so you might as well swing for the fences, but I don't like his chances of ever regaining the confidence in his legs to get back to his high school form, let alone be a plus baller as a grown man. OG, Ferguson, Ojeleye (who they passed on again at #31), Juwan Evans (ditto), Caleb Swanigan, and Wesley Iwundu were all higher on my big board.
• At #31, they took Frank Mason, who's you're prototype college star, pro failure (at least we didn't take him with a lottery pick *cough* Jimmer * cough*). Juwan Evans was much more upside. But they were clearly going for character guys, and it looks like Mason might be the 15th man on the roster, so maybe it'll all work out.

That all sounds quite negative. I'll probably wrong on half of these guys (no screenshots, please!_, which means 50% of their picks pan out, which is an okay haul in the end. So I give their draft a B, because it could have been better, but it could still be great.)

And this week they've killed it in free agency bringing in one decent player in his prime (George Hill) and too stars in the twilight of their careers (Zach Randolph, Vince Carter) who know the coach's system and can teach the young guys how to be pros for 15+ seasons. 

So yeah, I know anyone who reads this blog for stuff about writing or photos of the South Island didn't read all of that, but I had fun writing it.

Anyway. PHOTOS!

Andersons Bay inlet on a frosty morning

Looking the other way

Marne St, flooded in king tide

Otago Harbour, killing it

Reason #751 to love Dunedin: Bacon Buttie Station!

Glenfalloch selfie with son.

I don't often write in cafes, but when I do...

Barnes v Trapido / Conductor / Offshore whore / Lockout poetry

Recent reading

I recently finished listening to Barbara Trapido’s novel Sex and Stravinsky on my iPod and quickly followed this up with Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending, which won the Booker Prize this year.

Trapido’s novel clocked in at a normal 11 hours and change, while Barnes’ was over half the time. It was a nice feeling to finish two books in quick succession after two and a bit months of listening to Nicholas Nickleby (however much I enjoyed that book).

The Sense of an Ending worked magnificently as an audiobook. There’s a single narrator, Tony Webster, who recalls specific moments in his life relating to a particular strand of memory: those relating to his friend, Adrian, who committed suicide in his early twenties. Tony weaves in and out of memory, digressing often on just what memory is and how it changes with time, but also finds the time to muse about the modern world, retirement, divorce and self-delusion. This is the kind of novel some agents might describe as quiet or slow, if you were to query them as a no-name writer, but I found it a thrilling and engaging story – thrilling, I guess, because it felt so intimate and real.

Sex and Stravinsky on the other hand, was not as well suited to the audiobook format. Trapido’s third person narrator inhabits at least eight different character’s perspective during the novel, and while the third person is kept up throughout, the voice of the narrator often transmutes into the perspective character’s voice (especially when we’re following the two adolescent girl characters). I found this mix of third and first person techniques confusing in an audiobook, as the narrator adopted the voice of the difficult teenage girl while still referring to the girl as Kat/her/she. Also, the reader, Jan Francis, had the difficult task of managing English, Australian, South African (three sorts: English settler, Afrikaner and Zulu), French and Italian accents.

The most engaging part of the novel for me were the parts about Caroline’s mother, who ranks up there with Mrs Nickleby in the pantheon of aggravating mothers in fiction. Unfortunately, after Caroline’s mother dies (to the delight of the reader), Francis's voice for Caroline alters and becomes a bit too similar to her shrewish mother. This is no fault of Trapido, of course, but it is difficult to think about the text objectively without thinking about the slips and tangles in the audiobook version.

Having said this, I’m still a big advocate of audiobooks. In my experience there are far more successes (like Barnes’ and Dickens’ novels) that problem children.


Still a paperboy

The paper book I’m reading at the moment is The Conductor by Sarah Quigley. I’m about halfway and have to say I haven’t really been sucked in just yet. Perhaps it’s the musical chairs the narrative plays with it’s three perspective characters (of which only Shostakovich was known to be beforehand). Perhaps it’s the fact I’m saving the CD recording of The Leningrad Symphony until the point it appears in the story. Perhaps it’s that I’m not really in the reading headspace all that often at the moment with all the wedding guff that crowds out my leisure time?


For completists

Last month I blogged about the bad review I received (belatedly). I also wrote a column about it for the Dom Post but it wasn’t posted online (there’s no real logic I can see to what is and what isn’t posted on www.stuff.co.nz). I include a scan of it here for posterity's sake.

Common ground

You’ve got just over a week left to submit your short story for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition, for which I am one of the judges.

For those who’ve submitted or are still thinking about it, I wrote something about my experience with prizes for the Commonwealth Writers website: basically, don’t just enter competitions, revise your stories, submit to journals, get better, get published. Simple, eh?

I also wrote about my favourite bricks and mortar bookshop, Unity Books on Willis Street, for which I expect at least a high five next time I come a'browsing!


Offshore whore

I spoke to Julie Green of the Griffith REVIEW about my story, ‘Offshore service’, and my time spent in Queensland. You can read the interview here.


Side-effects of the NBA lockout

It looks like the chances of an NBA season this year are slim to none. This is terrible news for arena staff in the states and some lower level employees of the teams who rely on basketball games for a paycheck. Spare a thought also for the basketball journalists, who have had to stake out bargaining sessions between the players and the owners which have stretched into the wee small hours (and inevitablty end with both sides unwilling to make detailed comments at the ensuing press conference as negotiation is still ongoing).

Some writers are turning their attentions to other basketball leagues around the world (where a small number of NBA players are also looking to supplement their incomes). They appear heavily reliant on Google Translate to file their updates – today Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted that the Houston Rocket’s Marcin Gortat had signed with a Turkish team, then hastily tweeted a retraction that the two parties were in fact still negotiating and the confusion stemmed from Google Translate.

Much more exciting to me was the news from SB Nation blogger Tom Ziller (@teamziller) that when you throw a Chinese box score into Google Translate it tells you there is a statistical category “was invaded” ('turnovers' to you and me). Ziller also points to a headline which translates as "Yi Jianlian floating in the sky watching JR violence of his four years of a button changes."

I’m feeling a James Brown- (NZ poet not US soul singer) style poem coming on.


Novel update

I heard back from my editor last week after she read the first c.50,000 words of THE NOVEL. She referred to it as the embryo of my novel, which might be another way of putting it. Anyway, she liked it (it would be unfair to quote embryonic praise as there’s a lot that can go wrong between now and the final manuscript) and I am to push on and finish the beasty but it looks like it won’t come out till February 2013. This means I’ll only get to publish one book in my twenties. Oh well. It does give me a few extra months next year to really make it the best book I can. And to write some short stories and find them homes before the birth of THE NOVEL. And find a friggin' title.

Naming Characters / Breaking News/ Run TMC / Going West

Naming Characters (the first instalment of many)

I’ve been on the hunt recently for names for secondary characters as THE NOVEL moves into a new frontier. Naming characters in semi-realistic fiction is tricky because you can’t be too outlandish or too overtly symbolic, as this diminishes the sense of (semi-)reality you’re labouring to create.

In the course of other fact-sourcing and fact-checking adventures, I came across this article on Papers Past:

ODD NAMES Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 70, 24 March 1937, Page 18

Even the name "Appendicitis," which Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, of Oklahoma, have bestowed on a newly-arrived daughter, is no more eccentric than some to be found among English gipsies [sic] seventy years ago, says the "Manchester Guardian." Talking to a gipsy woman on Stanmore Common in 1864, Mrs. Brightwen, the naturalist, learned that her name was Trinity Smith and that her family of daughters included Levise, Centina, Cinnaminti, Cinderella, Sibernia, and Leviathan. Asked why the youngest child had been given so weighty a name, she was informed, "Well, ye see, it were the name of the big ship (the Great Eastern was at first named Leviathan), and we thought it such a pretty name that we'd give it to the next boy we got: happened it come a girl, but we thought it didn't matter much, so gave it to her."

Breaking news #1

Victoria University of Wellington study reveals psychopaths prefer commerce degrees.

Hmm. I wonder how VUW feel about its psychology department taking a dump on the university’s cash-cow?

Excuse me while I control+F and delete all occurrences of “Bachelor of Commerce and Administration from Victoria University of Wellington” from my CV…


Breaking news #2

Apparently lots of people don’t know about ctrl+f . I struggle to believe the figure is as high as 90%, and I can say for sure that kids in NZ schools are being taught this skill and a bazillion other techie things in the inquiry-based curriculum... but still. Everyone should know ctrl+f! Otherwise you might as well just write everything by hand and read, like, paper!


Paid Work

The full text of my review of the anthology Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories About Work, edited by Richard Ford is now online at The Listener’s website.

Dream Teams

Geeky-sports moment: If I could choose any two NBA teams from the past to control in a video game they would be:

1. 1990-91 Golden State Warriors, aka Run TMC (Run Tim (Hardaway) Mitch (Richmond) and Chris (Mullin). It’s telling the entire team is summarised by a 3-man moniker, because Tim, Mitch and Chris basically were the Golden State Warrior’s offense for three seasons (they accounted for 70+ points a game, still a record for three team mates) and, like all GSW teams, they played no defense. Mitch Richmond is my favourite NBA player of all-time and I recently brought a vintage 90-91 Richmond #23 jersey to hang on my wall (to go with my Richmond #2 Kings jersey from circa 1995).

This adorns my bedroom wall.

2. 2001-02 Sacramento Kings. I actually had a copy of NBA Live 2002 and played a full season with this squad, but 10 years hindsight and the advances in graphics and gameplay mean this team is still a tantalising proposition. And the chance to right the wrongs of history and trounce the 01-02 Lakers? Priceless. From this approximate era, I have Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic jerseys.

My office, featuring Peja 'Antique pistol for a head' Stojakovic

So, it was with much gasping and desk-slapping that I read about NBA 2K12, which is due for release later this year. It includes 30 classic teams from the past (lots of Celtics and Lakers…) but also, if you preorder, you will get codes to unlock two additional teams: the 1990-91 Warriors and the 2001-02 Kings.

Run TMC baby!

Meta Moment

Anyone ever noticed how I tend to rush up hodge-podge posts shortly after bearing my soul as a writer in order to push said soul-bearing further down the front page? Me neither.


Breaking news #3

Boys don’t read as much as girls.

Okay, that’s not so breaking (except heart-breaking, perhaps?). Actually, I found the article above
from Robert Lipsyte (Sam’s father!) interesting.

Inspired by my outreach events in Sydney, my Next Year’s Resolution (patent pending) is to get out to more schools and juvies and prisons and talk to young people, especially male, and show them that books aren’t all written by old people (or women).

First order of business, donate some copies of A Man Melting and Jesus' Son to Mt Crawford’s library!


Wicky Wicky Wild Wild West
The programme for Going West Books and Writers Festival 2011 is now online. I’m appearing in the session ‘Early Days Yet’ with Tanya Moir, author of La Rochelle’s Road (you can read an extract of it here) on the morning of Sunday 11 September.

Not long to go now...

The younger people with the ache of youth were eating all the cheese

The title of today’s post is a line from ‘Somewhere Else’ by Grace Paley. The rest of this post is stuff I’ve been up to over the last week (and has nothing to do with cheese).


Kay One Double-Ewe One

On Tuesday evening I went to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary (aka Zealandia) to observe a researcher recording kiwi calls for a Dom Post column I’m writing. It was the first time I’ve ever seen a kiwi without a pane of glass between us (I saw five; the closest was probably a forty centimetres from my foot). It was also the first time I’ve been called upon to use radio telemetry (I picked it up quickly, apparently). I will withhold my ra-ra ‘the sanctuary is a precious asset’ carry-on for Your Weekend in a little under three weeks.


Appetite for Deconstruction

On Thursday evening I graced the podium at the Brooklyn Masonic Lodge. Twas a strange old place, secluded up a winding drive, the main hall had a small square dance floor (3m x 3m maybe) in the centre for post-initiation jigs and burning Dan Brown books (I guess).

But no goats were slaughtered on Thursday. There weren’t even any secret handshakes. No, I was there along with poet Jenny Bornholdt, children’s writer Philippa Werry and TradeMe guru and columnist Mike O’Donnell to talk about “Appetites” (however we chose to take that theme) in a fundraising evening for Brooklyn School.

The event was chaired by Radio National’s Kathryn Ryan (it was strange to hear her, let alone see hear, outside of the 9-noon window). There was mulled wine (it was a howling southerly), nibbles and a raffle (M. came along and won third prize: result!). Funds raised from the evening went toward buying books for the year ones and twos. Philippa Werry quoted Mario Vargas Llosa’s Nobel acceptance speech where he said that learning to read was the most important thing that ever happened to him. True, true.

I spoke about my appetite for basketball, which was stoked by the rejection encountered as a third former (Year 9) when I didn’t make one of my school’s three basketball squads, and how this passion is essentially the same as my passion for writing (basketball as a 13-year-old involved a lot of making up stories on my driveway while I wore through another nylon net, with regular doses of rejection when ever I came too close to the real world). To frame this discussion I read from my story-in-progress (or story-for-which-progress-stalled-some-time-ago) ‘The Wishing Cave’, which I included in my Abandoned Blog Posts post last month.


Time’s A Goon

On Friday I signed 1,020 stickers for the Commonwealth Foundation. The stickers will be stuck inside copies of A Man Melting (if they end up buying 1,020 that’ll do wondrous things to my sales figures) for the head of the Commonwealth Foundation to give as gifts (along with 2011 Best Book winner, A Memory of Love) to ambassadors and other embassy-types.

[Aside: In an abandoned passage from an abandoned novel, I once wondered what if every reproduction of a famous painting, say Lady with an Ermine, was another pair of eyes for the original artwork, which by virtue of it being a masterpiece possessed a kind of sentience. What would Lady with an Ermine conclude about humanity from its 1,000 vantage points and four centuries of surveillance? How would this differ from The Madonna of The Rocks' views? I was reminded of this 'What If' when considering what sort of hands my book might end up as a result of this Commonwealth Foundation gifting. Wouldn't it be a funky art project to install tiny spycams in the spine of each book and watch the goings on in consulate drawing rooms (and oxfam second hand stores)? Yes, but unfortunately it'd also be considered espionage.]

My brother flexed his photograpic muscle and made this timelapse film of my 67 minute signing vigil (an average of one signature every 3.97 seconds), complete with tracking shots and sunset over the bays, Kilbirnie and Miramar.



I asked Damien Wilkins if we could use a song off The Close Readers’ fabulous album, Group Hug. He replied: ‘Another of my goals achieved: to be background music!’ The song used is: 'What Did I Do Right?'. You can find out more about the Close Readers and buy their album here.

You know how sometimes your activities over a given period are coloured by the book you’re reading at the time (and how the book is coloured by what’s going on around you)? Well, the compression of 67 minutes of mindless, OOS-risking activity into a 1:17 timelapse seems to me emanently linked to the theme of A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which I blogged about yesterday.


Below Ground Above Karori

On Saturday I went on a tour of the Wrights Hill Fortress, which was built hastily during WWII when fears of a Japanese invasion were at their peak. The tour was a tie-in with Wayne Barrar’s exhibition of underground photos from around the world, ‘An Expanding Subterra’ which is on at the Wellington City Gallery until this weekend. Barrar was there with his camera and tripod, but the tour was led by Mike Lee, the chairman of the society looking after and restoring the fortress.

 The complex is surprisingly huge. So huge that Lee and his dedicated team have only managed to restore one of the three gun placements (though no guns as they were sold as scrap to Japan (!!) in the 1960s) since 1989. We were also taken to the unrestored parts and the contrast was huge. I really hope that the unrestored parts remain that way. The wetas also seemed to prefer the decayed to the done-up.

If you’re looking for better photography than my snapshots, you should check out my brother’s new blog (he’s good with the photoshop, not so much with the proof reading; when our powers combine, we are Captain Blogger).

The Vestigial Ess

I’m not one of those editor-types who knows the hard and fast rules of grammar and keeps a copy of Strunk and White beside my PC. In musical terms, I learnt to write all proper-like by ear. As a result my foundations are always shifting. I go through phases with punctuation: at the moment I am emerging from a reliance on em-dashes (and finding room for parentheses); I once vowed never to use a semi-colon.
At the moment, without any scientific basis or proclamation from a higher authority, I find myself removing the terminal “s” from words such as “towards”, “besides”, and “backwards”. This is a recent evolution of my move away from “whilst” to “while”.

[Aside: There a dude who runs training courses at work who says “while-ist” which is incredibly distracting when you’re trying ever-so-hard to focus on what’s new in Microsoft Office 2007; it’s also inefficient.]

The thing is, I still type “whilst” and “towards” most of the time and I’m trying to take note of what I actually say in conversation (unconcious usage being the self-taught grammarian’s bible). But for now it’s farewell to those superfluous susserations and hopefully hello to a cleaner, simpler voice on the page.


Helicopters

On Sunday I spoke with a helicopter pilot and the director of a helicopter training and tour operator at the Lifeflight offices by the airport (they run the Westpac Rescue Helicopter). I had questions to ask about choppers because I’m writing a story for The Griffith Review (“the leading Australian journal of ideas and analysis” according to their own press, but this accords with my knowledge, especially from my time in Australia 2004-2007) sort of on spec. They asked if I had something that fit the theme of their next issue, which is “islands”. I said not really, but I have some unfinished pieces which I could scrub up. They liked the sound of my helicopter story and said I had till the end of July… which meant I needed to get my head around helicopters pronto.

The two guys I spoke to yesterday were generous with their time and most helpful (one even offered to read through what I write, though I'm not sure I'm up for that kind of technical scrutiny). This week I’m going to devote my AMs to chugging on with the novel (Parenthetical Progress Report: going pretty well right now, maybe 15% done with 3.5 months of amazing productivity ahead of me, hohoho) and churning out my chopper story in the PM.


Country and Western (Poetry)

Today (Monday) I walked to Te Papa in my lunch hour (it was surprisingly dry and unblustery) to listen to Jenny Bornholdt, Airini Beautrais and Bernadette Hall read and discuss their latest poetry collections, chaired by Bill Manhire.  It was the first of twelve Writers on Mondays sessions for the year and I hope to make it along to all that I can.

I've been meaning to do a poetry collection / anthology reading summary post since February... It's been so long that I've read two Airini Beautrais collections in that time (Secret Heart and Western Line) and haven't yet raved about them (though I did mention her in my interview on Unity Books' website).

The reading today was a bit, I dunno... umph-less. I'm not sure the experiement to have the other two poets comment on their favourite poems in the collection of the poet who just read worked. There didn't seem much scope for conflict or discussion.

It may have been the audience (and/or the lack of mulled wine), but I felt like Jenny Bornholdt got a lot more laughs on Thursday night; and I was expecting Airini Beatrais' charms and curses from Western Line to kill.
(When I read these poems, I tend to hear Kim Hill's voice rather than Airini's [Radio NZ interview here]; maybe the audience felt similarly confused).

Not a wasted lunchtime venture by any stretch, but something a little short of magic.


Trailing Off
Tomorrow I'm on the 6.30am flight to Auckland for work... School visits: yay! Early start: boo!

Bits of Babel, Books, Birds, Base/Bass & Basketball (#94)

Babel Building Blocks

The writer Isaac Babel is said to have asked women he met if he might rifle through their purses to inspect their contents. Some accounts have him paying for this privilege, fewer still suggest that he paid prostitutes for this (and this alone).

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"A well-thought-out story doesn’t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story."
— Isaac Babel ('My First Fee')

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“How late I learned the essential things in life! In my childhood, nailed to the Gemara, I led the life of a sage, and it was only later, when I was older, that I began to climb trees”
— Isaac Babel

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"I grew up wishing that someday, somewhere, a door would open and my father would come in. We would recognize each other immediately, and without seeming surprised, without letting him catch his breath, I would say: "Well, here you are at last. We've been puzzled about you for so long; although you left behind much love and devotion, you bequeathed to us very few facts. It's so good to have you here. Do sit down and tell us what happened."
— Nathalie Babel (Isaac's daughter, quoted here)

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Anniversaries

Today marks one year since the book launch for A Man Melting (and one year and one day since getting engaged; still a few months to go before November!!).  The book was officially released on 2 July 2010...

I'm working like stink to get a book together that might be able to come out in the second half of 2012, but there are a lot of things outta my control (and even the things that are in my control I might not be able to manage), so for now it'll do to look back on my first launch and the solid twelve months me and A Man Melting have had, including: 10 positive reviews (0 negative), 2 end-of-year best book lists, 1 "hot writer" appellation, 1 "best dressed", 3 appearances on radio NZ, two appearances on TV, a prize, a number of newspaper articles about me, 21 columns published in the Dom Post, 1 travel article published and 1 fiction review submitted and set to appear shortly. 

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And 1

And it's nice (in a strange way) to have my words being picked up and mangled by spammers. Here's the latest:

"She was only a newcomer (her solo moody was 4 years later) and described herself as 'a pouch of potatoes'"

- misquoted here, original here.

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The word and the image

a little thing, made big from not knowing when to leave off:
gone past all need except need, enough never enough.

I only started noticing starlings after reading Tim Upperton's poem, 'The Starlings', two years ago. Until then, I guess I didn't bother to distinguish them from blackbirds and thrushes, despite the fact this now seems ludicrous: the metallic glints of their feathers, their electro-squeals, the packs picking through seaweed or muscling out sparrow and chaffinch on the freshly sown lawn, even their silhouette (short tail, thin beak) - how could it be anything but a starling?

The pursuit of knowledge is like the starlings' drive to reproduce in Upperton's poem: never-ending and perhaps even pointless. But once you start, it's harder to derail a certain fascination.

It wasn't until this year that I took note of the difference between a summer starling and a winter starling. And it's all thanks to my new Canon 550D and its image stabilised 55-250mm lens which allows me to get close-ups of birds and capture them in motion while still keeping the images clear. Before this starts sounding like an infomercial... it's time for pictorial illustration.

Because I only got my camera a couple of months ago, I don't have any summer starling photos, but here's a nice illustration courtesy of http://www.g1art.com:

Winter starling (top) and summer starling (bottom)

In winter, a starling's plumage gets all spotty and they look a lot more sinister, to me at least. I think the sinisterness (?) is directly proportional to the starling's immediate environs...

In a tree: moderately sinister.

Peering down from a powerline: quite sinister.

3 puffed up brutes keeping lookout from a Sky aerial: highly sinister

Controlling the national grid: terrifying!

Okay, I know I've already lost most of you, but does anyone else think a starling in winter looks like a dalek? 

Am I right? Fine, next topic...

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I like you're old stuff better than your knew stuff

When I lived in the UK I really enjoyed watching Masterchef, which was a 30 minute show every weeknight which pitch 6 amateur chefs against each other. Every episode there were 3 challenges and one person left standing at the end of the episode. Then it was quarterfinals, semis and a week long final where the final few went of the the jungle or something.

Now of course every country has their bastardised Masterchef - none of which I can stomach. The Australian one, which runs before the TV1 news here in NZ (so I am destined to catch the last 2mins of every episode) is the worst. At the moment they are working their way through the top 50, kicking out people every two challenges. On average it seems to take 1.5 episodes to finish one challenge (and these are 60 minute episodes). And the challenges seem to mostly be them all cooking the same freaking dish! No thank you.

So I was delighted to see this video on YouTube (via Twitter) today that took me back to the good old days old Greg and John on the original Masterchef:

  

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Locked Out

The NBA has officially locked out its players as negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement with the players union have stalled. NBA.com has also gone into lock down mode.  It's looking like some or all of the 2011-12 NBA season will be lost. The last time a labour dispute affected a season was back in 1999, when they managed to come to an agreement in December and held a 50 game regular season (as opposed to the standard 82).

The maths is simple for most: a full season > a partial seasons > no season at all. Sadly, most might not include the owners (several of whom are losing money, so no season means less loss) and some of the players. But sucks for the fans.

It especially sucks for Sacramento Kings fans (like me), after the Californian capital managed to keep its franchise for one more season, but needs to increase attendance and get a deal for a new arena done in order to insure the long term viability of an NBA team in Sacto.  Add to this the fact that in the last week the team has acquired three new potential starters: Jimmer Fredette (#10 pick in the 2011 draft and the latest great white hope), John Salmons (via a trade with the Milwaukee Bucks) and JJ Hickson (via a trade with the Cleveland Cavs). And the Kings probably aren't done revamping their roster. Whenever the lockout ends and free agent signings can commence, they should be targetting another big man from Nene, Tyson Chandler, Marc Gasol, or resigning Samuel Dalembert.

I was talking to a friend the other day who said he just can't get into basketball because to him the game seems relatively static and repetitive. I can totally see this, but once you buy in to the narrative of American sports (in which statistics and economics play major parts) it's difficult to disentangle oneself. There's always some drama going on, most of it off the court, or between possessions.  The loss of an entire season does toss a wrench or two into the machine (how will the draft order be determined if no season took place? what happens to players in the final year of their contract who don't get a chance to play their butts off in 2011-12 to earn their big payday?) but it also threatens to break that narrative thread. The NBA could lose a lot of fans in the next 12 months as people find new time sponges.  I know I'll certainly notice the extra 2.5 hours 3 times a week that'll free up with no Kings games to watch on NBA league pass.  Will it make me more prolific? Meh, I'll probably just play angry birds.

But, while there's still some Kings news to report, I'll just wish Omri Casspi well with the Cavs. If only you were as devastating in purple as advertised!!

Worksheet #80, or A Lawn to Mow

Three and a bit days back in NZ and I miss being outside. It looks so beautiful out the window both at home and at work and yet I feel chained to computers. I walked up ten flights of stairs today and nearly died. I'm supposed to climb some hills over Easter, hopefully the rugged Eastern Wairarapa landscape can distract me from my fritzing heart and lungs.

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Real names I encountered while travelling last fortnight which I reserve the right to call characters (or children)

Fritzie (according to her name badge, Changi Airport)
Kiko (not sure how it's spelt, but it belonged to a female from Brazil)
Dung (Vietnamese tour guide, probably not suitable for Kiwi children, even if it is pronounced more like 'Jung')

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Whiner alert: This is where I complain about my good fortune not being good enough.

I have received some more details about the outreach elements of the Commonwealth Writers Prize programme in Sydney in May (coincides with Sydney Writers Fest). We are going to the Juniperina Juvenile Justice Centre, Blacktown Girls High School, Penrith High School and Gawura (place in central Sydney that focuses on raising education achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people). We'll also appear on Radio Koori's Blackchat programme and there's a reception at the Admiralty House hosted by the Governor General…

My gripe? The Juvenile Justice Centre is female only, so is Blacktown Girls High School (funnily enough). Literacy is a big issue across the board, but it's widely agreed that girls read more than boys and are doing better in the current educational environment. Is this a case of picking the low hanging fruit? Well, not that low hanging: it's not like we're going to rich private schools and universities. And maybe taking a bunch of green writers to a male juvie centre may be asking for trouble, but it seems a shame not to try. My mild frustration is akin to the uproar yesterday when the Australian scientist suggested letting the Kakapo die off and using the money to save 'easier' species from extinction.

Boys don't read. Short story collections don't sell. Australians don't read New Zealand books and vice versa. The book world is full of these mythical absolutes that encourage the continued narrowing of the field.

/rant

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Mini-milestone: today my friends take possession of their first house, the first of my Wellington friends to do so. Okay, so one of them is a doctor and the dream of home ownerships is a lot further off from a policy analyst/writer and a scientist, but hey, maybe one day I'll have a lawn to mow.

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Potentially (but hopefully not) mega life-defining milestone: The Sacramento Kings played their last home game today*, which is also their last game of this season as they’ve missed the playoffs like a Reggie Evans free throw misses the rim. This is also potentially the last ever game for the Sacramento Kings as the owners seem bent on moving them to Anaheim, where they will become known as the Anaheim Royals (or something similar).

I have supported the Kings since 1994. I have been to Sacramento (once, when I was 11) but they only time I’ve seen them play was actually in Toronto in 2009 (they lost). It’s probably more likely I’ll go to Anaheim than Sacramento in the next 20 years (kiddies wanting to go to Disneyland, perhaps), but still, I’ll be gutted if they move.

It will not only turn my Mitch Richmond, Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic jerseys into oddball paraphernalia rather than retro strips, like those Shawn Kemp Sonics or Alonzo Morning Charlotte Hornets jerseys, but Richmond, Webber and Vlade Divac will no longer have an arena in which to hang their retired jersey numbers.

I will become the supporter of the third NBA team in the LA area. Excuse me while I take a shower…

What will happen to Sactown Royalty, one of my favourite websites? What will happen to Jerry Reynolds, my favourite colour commentator and all around nice guy (I don’t really care what happens to play-by-play man and all around douche Grant ‘Peaches’ Napear)?

I’ve supported this team through thin (Richmond era) and thick (Webber era) and thin again (post-Webber’s knee blowing out). While the current roster will be transplanted down to Anaheim, and while I’ll continue to root for DeMarcus and Marcus and Tyreke (amazing to think that he’s the third most important player after this season) and Beno and Sammy and Jason and Pooh and tonight’s small forward of choice… it won’t be the same.

My life will be divided into Sacramento Kings Era (SKE) and Post Sacramento Kings Era (PSKE).

That is unless the move falls through. If Jerry Buss convinces the other NBA franchise owners to vote against the move. Or some dues ex machine swoops in and secures a new arena in Sacramento in the next, oh, 18 hours. Or the Maloofs lose their nerve and decide to wait and see for another year…

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* I haven't watched the game yet... about to load it up on NBA Broadband. C'mon Good, triumph over Evil one more time!